THE STORY OF TOSHIZO HIJIKATA - EPILOGUE: A Memory (The Living and the Dead)

The President, Admiral Takeaki Enomoto, wanted to go down fighting – but Keisuke Otori, the Minister of Army, was decidedly against it. It seemed that having to retrieve Toshizo’s broken body from the battlefield had left quite a strong impression on him as to what happened to those who sought death in a blaze of glory. “If it’s dying that you want,” Otori told the President, “you can do that anytime.”

So the men surrendered and their lives were spared.

Both Enomoto and Otori spent a few years in prison. Even though he was accused of high treason, the Satsuma-Choshu government pardoned Takeaki Enomoto in 1872. Not only that they released him from imprisonment, but they also invited him to join their ranks. It wasn’t done out of the kindness of their hearts – neither the Satsuma nor the Choshu harbored any love for the Tokugawa – but out of pure pragmatism. They figured that Enomoto’s European education would come in handy in the process of modernization reforms that young Emperor Meiji was implementing. And so Takeaki Enomoto became part of the new ruling elite, rising higher in social ranks than any other former Tokugawa loyalist. His particular pet project became promoting Japanese emigration to the New World – United States and South America in particular. He died in 1908, at the age of 72. As for Keisuke Otori, after being released from prison in the early 1870’s, he also took up employment with the Meiji regime. He became a diplomat and ended his career as ambassador to China and Korea. He passed away in 1911.

The French government sent a ship to evacuate Jules Brunet and his men from Ezo and smuggle them to the colonies in Indochina. After he returned to Paris, Brunet discovered he was a wanted man: the Meiji government had even put a price on his head and asked for extradition from France. Yet his actions in the Boshin War earned him immeasurable popularity in his homeland: he gave press interviews, published his diaries and memoires, toured the country to tell stories. So the only disciplinary measure Brunet suffered for disobeying orders and getting involved in the Ezo Republic was six months of suspension. After that, he proceeded to have a brilliant career in the French army: he played a prominent role in the Franco-Prussian War, became the key figure in suppressing the Paris Commune, and in 1898 he received the position of Chief of Staff of the French Military, with the rank of Brigadier General. In the late 1870’s, thanks to the lobbying of Takeaki Enomoto, Jules Brunet was pardoned by the Meiji government, and even decorated as a national hero of the Order of the Rising Sun – the medal is nowadays on display in the Embassy of Japan in Paris. Brunet died in 1911, at the age of 73. What is little known is that Brunet was also a talented painter – his aquarelles portraying the last days of the Shogunate and life in the Ezo Republic are an unexpectedly warm testimony of his time in Japan, much more emotional than his diaries. Oh, and you know that movie with Tom Cruise, “The Last Samurai”, about an American officer who comes to Japan to help the Imperial forces but ends up supporting the rebels instead? In real life, there was never any American officer switching sides – it was Jules Brunet all along.

Young Emperor Meiji grew up to become Meiji the Great – one of the most powerful and beloved Emperors that Japan has ever had. The period of his reign is known as the Meiji Restoration – times when the land of the rising sun went through a string of political, social, cultural and industrial reforms, emerging as one of the Great Powers on the world stage. As an Emperor, Meiji took a very active role in ruling the country, and he can be personally credited for the birth of Japan as a unified, modern nation. When he passed away in 1912, a Shinto shrine was built in his honor in an iris garden in Tokyo – the name he’d given to the city that was once Edo when he’d moved his Imperial Court there – which is now one of the most important landmarks of the Japanese capital.

When he resigned in 1868, Yoshinobu Tokugawa, the last Shogun, led a quiet life in the province of Shizuoka. Some thirty years after the end of the Boshin War, in 1902, Emperor Meiji allowed him to return to Tokyo and restore the Tokugawa family line. He was even given an honorary position in the parliament, as a sign of gratitude for all that the Tokugawa family had done for Japan. But Yoshinobu cared little for politics. He took up many hobbies in his retirement: oil painting, archery, hunting, cycling – and photography. His photographs of the streets of Tokyo capture the remarkable moment of change, of how the city evolved from samurai Edo into the modern, industrial capital. And little did the citizens of Tokyo know that the funny old dude taking pictures with his clunky camera was actually the last Shogun himself. He died peacefully in 1913, at the age of 76.

The page Tetsunosuke Ichimura reached Hino three months after the Battle of Hakodate. There, he fulfilled his duty and delivered the swords, the letter, the photograph, the lock of hair and the poem to Hikogoro Sato and his wife Nobu, Toshizo’s sister. It is said that everybody wept – their spoiled, dream-headed prettyboy who’d everyone once deemed a loser came such a long way indeed. Afterwards, Tetsunosuke continued living with the Sato family until his untimely death in 1871, from an unspecified illness, at age 19. The items he brought are now kept in Toshizo Hijikata’s Museum in Hino. The Museum is curated by Toshizo’s descendants from the Sato family, and they personally take visitors on tours, willing to spend hours chatting with the Shinsengumi enthusiasts from all over the world.

After parting ways with Toshizo Hijikata in the fall of 1868, the Shinsengumi, led by Hajime Saito as their Commander, joined the forces of Katamori Matsudaira. They fought by his side in the Battle of Aizu – and they lost. It was the last mainland battle of the Boshin War – and it is also considered to be the official end of the Shinsengumi.

Katamori Matsudaira, the man who created the Shinsengumi, spent the next few years living under house arrest – the fate that Isami Kondo had hoped for, once. Upon his release, he retired from public life and became the Chief Priest of the Nikko Toshogu Shrine – a Shinto temple in which Ieyasu Tokugawa, the first Shogun, was worshiped as a deity. Matsudaira died in the temple in 1893, aged 57. Today, his Nikko Toshogu Shrine is a UNESCO world heritage site and one of the most popular tourist destinations in Japan.

The last Commander of the Shinsengumi Hajime Saito was arrested after the Battle of Aizu along with Katamori Matsudaira – but he managed to slip under his captors’ radar by giving out one of his many false names. He then assumed the name Goro Fujita – a fresh one, never used before – and went to live in Tokyo, where he got married, popped out three sons, and in 1874 joined the Metropolitan Police Department. Relying on the vast skills he had acquired during his Shinsengumi years – most notably spying and intelligence gathering – he quickly rose in the ranks and became a renowned homicide detective. He retired from the police in 1891, having reached the rank of Chief Inspector. Yet peaceful pensioner lifestyle wasn’t his cup of tea, so soon he started working as a night guard for the Tokyo Museum, and then as a clerk in the Tokyo Women’s High School, which had been established as part of Emperor Meiji’s educational reforms. There, the last Commander of the Shinsengumi could observe a whole new generation of Japanese youth growing up with different values and goals, to live in a country oh so unlike the one in which he had been born. Hajime Saito died at the age of 71 on September 28th 1915, from stomach ulcer caused by his long-term battle with alcoholism – a habit that got particularly nasty in his old age. His explicit wish was to be buried in a grave with no name – he said he’d had too many of those in his lifetime.

As for Shinpachi Nagakura, well… That dude’s fate was just special.

Remember how he disappeared in 1868? He managed to pull off that trick by promptly marrying a nice young woman (a doctor’s daughter, no less), taking her last name, and going off to live with her family in a small town called Otaru up north, far and away from any line of conflict. There, under the name of Yoshie Sugimura, he lived a very, very quiet life for decades. He worked as a swordsmanship instructor for prison guards in the local penitentiary and retired rather early to spend time with his family. The most notable thing that happened to him was beating the crap out of some yakuza dudes who’d bullied his grandson – the poor sods had no idea that the crooked old man walking with a stick could knock them around as easily as that.

But after the death of Emperor Meiji Japan began to change once again. Now that the country had become part of the world and a major player in the global scene, there was a sudden resurgence of interest in the national past. See, during the Meiji Restoration Japan was focused only on moving forward, so samurai stuff was considered “old-fashioned”, “outdated” and even “primitive”. But under the new Emperor Taisho, the country slowly started building back its national identity, and the new Japanese became interested in the lifestyle and traditions of their forefathers. Samurai stories came to be very fashionable – told, retold and sentimentalized to eternity and back, with brutality of the bushido diluted to make room for romance and grandiosity. The tale of the Shinsengumi – who they were, how they lived and why they died – suddenly started getting attention. So in the spring of 1913, at the age of 74, almost half a century after he’d quit the group angry at Isami Kondo, Shinpachi Nagakura made a life-changing decision. He contacted the local newspapers in Otaru, introduced himself with his real name and Shinsengumi rank – and said he was ready for an interview.

The old kook had always had his way with words. In a series of interviews that were later reprinted by national newspapers and even published as a best-selling book, Shinpachi Nagakura painted this absolutely amazing picture of the Shinsengumi. He didn’t outright forge the facts – but he did exaggerate a great deal, embellishing, romanticizing, leaving out much of the nasty stuff, making them appear braver, stronger, larger than life. In his stories, his old, long-dead comrades started living again, becoming better and more perfect versions of themselves – until they met their tragic ends, making the readers mourn. And the book sold tens of thousands of copies. It’s Nagakura’s interviews that finally sealed the fate of the Shinsengumi as one of the best known and most popular episodes of Japanese history. In the years to come, writers, movie-makers and artists would rely on Nagakura’s account in creating their own stories about the Shinsengumi, making the tale grow, evolve, and turn into an outright legend.

(You may wonder how we know how much of Shinpachi Nagakura’s tale is truth, and how much of it is, well, creative interpretation. On one hand, obviously, there are contemporary chronicles about the Shinsengumi in which one can find many hard facts. On the other hand – and this is way more interesting – in 1998, descendants of Shinpachi Nagakura found in his belongings a few notebooks with his old diaries which he had kept during his Shinsengumi years. Written in a fresh, cynical style, the diaries openly speak both about the feeling of camaraderie in the group, and how things went to the dogs and fell apart afterwards. His diaries were also published, and they make for a fascinating read – especially if you compare them to the interviews he gave half a century later. Kondo’s portrayal, for instance, is radically different.)

Shinpachi Nagakura passed away on January 5th 1915 from blood poisoning caused by an infected tooth. He was buried like a national hero.

But there is a little known fact about Shinpachi Nagakura that, perhaps, concludes the story of Toshizo Hijikata in the most suitable way.

In his late years, Nagakura got hooked on movies – those black and white, silent movies that were still a wonder in the early 20th century world. He was particularly fond of foreign films, with lavish costumes, swashbuckling adventures and lots of melodrama, set in faraway countries he’d never seen in his life. “Since I have been alive for a long time, I was able to see such marvelous civilization,” he said once. “It is a very strange feeling. I wonder, if Kondo and Hijikata… If Hijikata-san lived in different times and saw a movie, with what expression on his face would he watch it? And what kind of dreams would it give him? ”

11mm caliber Lefaucheux Mle.1858 Naval revolver of the same pattern as a gun that Brunet gave to Hijikata. This was one of the most common revolvers used by Shogunate supporters during Boshin war.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Lef1.jpg
.32 (7.65mm) Smith & Wesson Model 2 "Old" Army, representative of the revolver carried by Isami Kondo, also quite common during Boshin war.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Smith_%26_Wesson_Army_No_2.JPG

Comments about what I know most - history and guns.
It is known that Jules Brunet gave Lefaucheux M1858 revolver, of the French standard naval pattern to Toshizo Hijikata, but it did not survive - he probably took him on his last ride as there are no other references to it after his death.
Even during his "samurai" days Isami Kondo owned Smith & Wesson Model 2 Old Army, which he surrendered to the government troops. It survived until WW2 when it was lost.
As you pointed out, "samurai" acquired every piece of firearms they could, at one moment of the Boshin war their cavalry was actually better armed than their opponent's, using 7-shot Spencer vs single shot Starr and Sharps carbines for government cavalry.
They lost most of their battles not due the inferior armament (through their armament was generally slightly inferior, but not in a degree that it would decide battles) but due the piss poor tactics and organization - in other words, due the being glory hogs who could not actually follow orders despite all the talk about "code" and listening to your superiors. Which you kinda pointed to in your articles.
Which contributed to that "noble savage" myth that rose "samurai" to the place where they are now firmly established in the popular culture. That and people generally being suckers for the lost causes (Alamo, Gettysburg, Kosovo, Sedan, Dunkirk... Need I go more? )...
BTW, for a whole "noble samurai using only swords" myth in the western culture I blame mostly Yukio Mishima and counterculture hippies taking him too seriously, which is really ironic considering what he thought of them... But as often irony is lost on fools.
PS. Toshizo Hijikata end (whole cavalry charge part at least) will be repeated with another "sucker for the lost causes" and "personality and life moviemakers could not make" - Enver Pasha, through his death was somewhat more merciful.